A staggering amount of chemicals including pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers are used every year on lawns, causing run-off and unnecessary health risks. Between 50% and 80% of lawn care chemicals run off lawns with the rain and into storm drains, ending up in the watershed or local ponds, lakes, streams and rivers. This causes algal blooms and feeds the invasive weeds out of control. In addition, many local communities use expensive herbicides in an effort to eliminate the invasive weeds in the ponds. Low levels of the fertilizer, pesticides and the herbicide may end up in local drinking water. Use of pesticides and fertilizer in urban and suburban communities contributes significantly to contamination of our drinking water and other surface water supplies. This also increases health risks to children, pets and the elderly and increases school department budgets from learning and behavioral disorders caused by the lawn care chemicals. Such use of chemicals applied to lawns adversely affects the entire community in many ways, increasing the risk to a wide range of public health problems, as well as incurring high costs of clean-up and dealing with invasive weeds.
Lawn care chemicals and pesticides get carried indoors into homes on shoes, pets and air currents. Once inside, pesticides linger in carpets, dust, on toys, and in the air we breathe. These chemicals normally break down outside over time with sunlight. However, away from sunlight and water, lawn chemicals and pesticides persist for many months, resulting in longer exposure to these chemicals indoors. According to health experts at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, prolonged exposure to the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers in lawn care chemicals is responsible for an alarming increase in the risk of learning and behavioral disorders in children, and an increased risk for asthma, Parkinson's disease, cancer and a number of other ailments. The increased health risks are much higher for children, the elderly and our pets. According to Dr. Margo Roman, a veterinary expert, “50 years ago, only 5% of dogs got cancer. Today, over 46% of dogs get cancer and there is evidence suggesting this is caused by the widespread use of lawn care fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.” In response to these concerns, according to a report from the Organic Consumers Association “a new era” in pesticide use has begun in many cities around the globe, including all of Canada, New York City, San Francisco and many European cities, with the banning of many domestic products containing chemicals considered toxic to humans and the environment, including certain lawn-care chemicals.
Some estimates indicate that 30% of our county's precious potable water is consumed for lawn care uses. Lawn irrigation, particularly in-ground watering systems, increase summer water use to levels 3 to 5 times higher than winter water use. Use of nitrogen-rich chemical fertilizers and fast-growing, high-maintenance, shallow rooted grasses exacerbates the problem. Water shortages from your neighbors lawn care leads to increased water prices for everyone, water bans, and enforced conservation. Many of the non-native lawn seeds from Europe or Kentucky, with very shallow roots, are naturally adapted to environments that are wetter than ours. In New England, and most of North America, these foreign, shallow root, high maintenance grasses leads to an unnatural pattern of frequent watering and frequent mowing, particularly if chemical fertilizer is used.
Watering lawns with water that is filtered for human consumption and pumped to our homes wastes huge amounts of energy. Much of this lawn irrigation water evaporates and never returns to the underground water table. Producing commercial fertilizers from petroleum is energy intensive, and costs are rising as oil prices rise. Running a typical lawn mower for an hour is 11 times more polluting than running a mid size car full of people and luggage for an hour. So the energy intensive fertilizer, water from the town and lawn mower pollution in a standard lawn greatly increases your home and family carbon foot print. The May 2008 issue of “Health” Magazine had a story about the 12 most toxic things around your home environment, noting that a chemically-maintained lawn is the single most toxic thing inside or outside a home environment.